A question to you network gurus.
 

Hey all you networking gurus I have a question for you!

I moved into my new house about a year ago and am now getting ready to go broadband. I noticed that my telephone sockets at home had cat.5e about them.

does this mean my house is pre-wired for data? I had a friend who moved into a new house in Vegas and got broadband. He just had to plug in to a cat5 socket on the wall to get internet. The only difference I saw was that his cat5 socket was right above his coaxial connectors for his cable TV. The thing is not all of the cat5 connectors worked in his house. It only seemed to work in his and his brother’s room. I also noticed that neither of them had a modem at all.

So here is my question. How do I find out if my house is pre-wired for a network? And do I need a modem? All I really want to do if to be able to plug in to cat.5e socket in my home and be connected to the internet. Thanks!

heres some pictures
http://ourworld.cs.com/DsClNvCca/DSC00137.JPG
http://ourworld.cs.com/DsClNvCca/DSC00136.JPG

that's certainly cat5e alright. Now the question is, how was it wired behind the scenes? If he's got it going through a hub/router (probably in the basement) then you're set up. If he's just got 2 of the wires in the cables going down to the basement and hooking into the telco's box, then you'll have to do a bit of work.

Ok your house sounds like it has been prewired for a data network. The standard practice is to run all of the cat 5 to a central location, you may find it in your utility room or near your electrical panel. Once you find that location you need to see if the cat 5 is going into a network switch/hub or if the wires are just hanging there. If you find the cat 5 but don't see a Switch/hub then I suggest getting a router with a built-in firewall.

If you don't want to see the modem around the house then put the modem down with your Switch/Hub in the utility room.